Entropy and Sustainability
The modern civilization that originated from the Industrial Revolution is now spreading throughout the world. The demand for natural resources is rapidly increasing and the environmental problems are getting globally more and more serious. Our civilization seems hardly sustainable. What should we do to make it sustainable? This series establishes the fundamental theory of civilization, analyzes the problems of resources and the environment in terms of entropy, and suggests a solution to them.
1. Table of Contents
This series was first written in 2007 to summarize my theory of systems and offer a solution to the problems of natural resources and the environment. For some reason, I could not publish the draft in 2007, but in 2018 I decided to publish it with some parts that hindered the publication. Read the following articles, if you are interested in this topic.
- 1. The Survival of Systems Against Entropy
- 1.1. The Definition of Entropy
- 1.2. The Definition of Systems
- 1.3. The Strategy of Survival
- 2. Climate Change in Human History
- 2.1. The General Tendency of History
- 2.2. The Human Evolution
- 2.3. Revolutions in the Holocene
- 2.4. Climate and Economy
- 3. Decentralization of Power
- 3.1. Information Systems
- 3.2. Political Systems
- 3.3. Economical Systems
- 4. Can Recycling Prevent Pollution?
- 4.1. The Essence of Pollution
- 4.2. Recycling of Materials
- 4.3. Energy Recovery from Waste
- 5. Three Issues About Global Warming
- 5.1. The Current Climate Change
- 5.2. The Causes of Global Warming
- 5.3. The Impacts of Global Warming
- 6. How Can We Stop Desertification?
- 6.1. Natural Conditions of Desert
- 6.2. Artificial Causes of Desertification
- 6.3. Human Contribution to Vegetation
- 7. Are Fuel Cells Commercially Viable?
- 7.1. Preface
- 7.2. The Merits of Fuel Cells
- 7.3. The Problems to Be Solved
- 7.4. Other Candidates
- 8. The Problems with The Kyoto Protocol
- 8.1. Problems of Unfair Burden Sharing
- 8.2. Problems of Flexible Mechanisms
- 8.3. An Alternative Solution
- 9. My Proposals for Sustainability
- 9.1. Birth Control by Education
- 9.2. Organic Agriculture
- 9.3. Utilization of Biomass
2. Postscript (2021)
I revised this series so that each page can be read as an independent article in 2021, but I gave up updating its content. Maybe I will update the contents by posting new articles. I left them as written in 2007 as much as possible for the sake of reference. I hope these still remain useful.